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Microsoft's Video Site 'Soapbox' Disappointing
nieske writes "CNet reviews Microsoft's new video site, Soapbox. Though browsing and uploading is easy, CNet isn't very enthusiastic about the beta, mostly blaming this on the fact that Soapbox has nothing more to offer than other video sites.
From the article: 'It's a slightly better sharing service than YouTube in some small technical ways, but it doesn't help users make money from their content like Revver does; it doesn't have granular privacy controls like Vox; it won't post directly into blogs for you like VideoEgg; and it won't show videos from other networks like Yahoo Video. Given Microsoft's position in the video sharing market (dead last), I expected a more aggressive product.'"
This is very similar to their traditional software market that they have come to dominate.
This reviewer is the minority of computer users. He is a technically elite individual. There are more regular average people than there are technically elite. Microsoft is probably aiming for the market of older people who shoot home videos on their digital camera and want a site they can understand -- to hell with unneeded functionality. I think there is a large market of people out there and I think that Microsoft is attempting to enter the online video market through this demographic.
I added a 120MB digital camera video to Google Video last week and the process was way too complex for my mom. Yet, I'm sure that she and my sisters will want to share their home videos with the rest of the family for free. And they're not looking to link it to their blogs (they don't know what that word means) or turn a buck on ad revenue. Playing to the lowest common denominator will get you very far in America.
Just something to think about before you laugh at Microsoft and claim they'll always be dead last.
Since the review so heavily criticized Soapbox, what did the reviewer think Microsoft should have added to put it ahead of the competition? I mean, if you add the same functionality (say, ad revenue), you're not exactly putting yourself ahead and you're just doing what's been done. Is there anything left to be done to make your online video site "the best"?
My work here is dung.
Would be the acting Chair-Man sending chairs flying.... while sliding down a piece of soap that's fallen out of the box.
The Batman / Butterfly theme is neither here nor there...
This is no suprise from Microsoft. Copy the basics to test the waters... then throw money behind the project to dominate.
Until it can automatically subtitle in seven different languages, help you create Matrix-like effects, split the atom, and turn my crap home movies into Oscar contenders, I won't be satisfied.
Just get plenty of links in Windows software to their own service.
Who needs agressive software when you have a monopoly in desktop OSs?
I just hope enough people notice their strategy.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Get in there with a product that *just about* does what it says on the tin, then use your squillions of $$$ to stifle the competition.
Since Apple hasn't come out with a video sharing service yet, MS doesn't have a template for what theirs will look like.
Currently MS is "embracing". I.e. copying what the competition has.
Extending comes later when they got the leverage to set the "standard".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Shock! - New Microsoft Product Criticised on Slashdot.org"
And we are surprised that a tacit technology re-seller that constantly tries to re-market other peoples concepts and products does a poor job of re-packaging a concept when it's caught behind the curve and has to scramble to get it's competing offering out before people notice that yet again they missed the boat.
Using Windows Live for authentication and a button inside WMP for one a one click upload like image shack would seriously give them some leverage.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but if I was building that service that is what I would do.
They have the platform there, why not use it.
news flash! vista will now have intergrated video sharing as a core part of the OS. that will fix their market position
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Betcha it's going to add some menu item like "upload to soapbox" or some other system integration. Then it will begin to eat up market share for the "easy to use" crowd.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
I'd be rather pissed off at the current management of the company.
Microsoft has traditionally been able to compete in a given market by
sheer size. The XBox is a good example - they sucked it initially,
then basically poured money and effort into it till they became a dominant
player in the market.
But now they're trying to become dominant in everything - search, portable music players/services, online video streaming, etc. Microsoft can certainly dominate
one market with brute force, perhaps two or three. But at some point, the brute
force method just isn't possible anymore - it eats far too many resources. And
from the looks of it, MS doesn't seem to be getting any better at initial execution.
As late to the game as they were with online video and search engines, they needed
to have a "wow" product. Instead, they turned out their typical "meh" product.
Eventually, they won't be able to spend their way out of the holes they dig.
Plus, you really don't know what's going on in the background. I mean, usually that tactic is what follows the release of the software. I'm guessing Microsoft has someone in mind to provide ads, storage, etc. The fact that it's not something you can incorporate into blog sites is also a little evidence they won't play ball with anyone.
As a pretty avid Linux user, it's been my opinion that both MS and Apple aim to do this
My work here is dung.
Why is it a requirement to be 'better' to criticise? Im a terrible golfer, does that mean when a star shanks it into the rough im not allowed to say that its a bad shot?
Microsoft has only just started, and they managed to produce what took youTube well over a year to achieve.
Certainly it isn't quite there. There will be a few bugs to sort out, and a few issues to resolve while they deal with technology to prevent users for flagrantly stealing music tracks and then selling them as videos, but Microsoft will get there. And it will be the best.
Why do I think this? Because Microsoft care about Quality.
They already have the worlds finest OS and the best office environment. Their search technology is second to none, and their entire online presense is increasing in leaps and bounds. Who could cope in today's online world without MSN messsenger or Outlook? They will soon dominate online videos, and then we'll see an amazing imprvement in this industry segment.
Do MS stockholders drink a lot?
Why does Microsoft feel the need to copy every single "new thing" out there? I realize they are incapable of innovation or independent thought, but the past 10 years for MS has been nothing but showing up to a party already in progress shouting "HEY GUYS, WE'RE HERE!!" With the Zume (after the DOA "Plays Anywhere" program) playing catch-up to the iPod and now Soapbox trying to play with YouTube and Google Video it's getting nauseatingly blatant. Tens of thousands of employees and still no innovation. Pretty depressing really.
rooooar
In sum, Soapbox is disappointing.
Uh... make up your mind!
Indeed, but `ease of use' isn't what springs to mind. If I go to the homepage, and then click the browser's Back button, I get the following popup
Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?
true
Press OK to continue or Cancel to stay on the current page.
This type of inanity is wrong on so many levels. A browser's navigation buttons are possibly the most commonly used controls on a computer, and any mistake is straightforwardly rectified by clicking the other button. Dialogs of this type should only happen when something unexpected, irrevocable, or dangerous is about to happen (`Do you really want to delete all files in your home folder?').
Requiring confirmation before doing safe, expected behavior is like crying wolf. The consequence of this popup is that people will spend more time on Microsoft's website than they intended, and will fail to take in some important piece of information in the future.
MS 'innovation' - I love it.
It seems they are so badly rattled right now they can't do anything original due to major (intellectual) insecurity. SoapBox is an idea popularised by uTube which they've then presented with Apple-style graphics. The typography of the SoapBox logo/name seems to be exactly what Apple have done on their website for a couple of years now (pretty much the same face I'd say) and the circular loading 'device' appears to be pretty much the standard OSX activity graphic.
As for "loading..." they copied that straight of my Vic20 from 1982 (ha ha)
Can they really be so devoid of ideas?
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
I associate soapboxes with "having something to say", not something that most of the youtube content is about. Then again the fact that Powerpoint is mostly used pointlessly hasn't harmed them.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
But MS-DOS had nothing more to offer than CP/M, Word wasn't better than WordPerfect and Windows wasn't better than Mac or X-Windows. And we can go on and on.... When coming from Redmond, the first version is normally even worse than the competition, version 2 is normally on-par and then with version 3, MS takes over.
Besides the quality and feature set of the products, this has of course also to do with the fact that by then the marketing machine is running at full throttle.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
You evaluate the current offerings and try to do the same thing, but better. Microsoft does this. They have Microsoft Research. There's nothing wrong with them getting into video sharing, although it is a bit of bizarre move. Microsoft's sins relate to the way they attempt to make life difficult for users of non-Microsoft software.
Sometimes this involves going as far as preventing effective communication between users of Microsoft software and users of non-Microsoft software, for example, the proprietary and secret Word document file format. While it has been mostly reverse-engineered, there are problems, and Microsoft's lack of cooperation (by refusing to release the file format specifications) is immoral, unethical, and anti-competitive.
With this new "Soapbox" website, my guess is that they will push proprietary formats owned by Microsoft and attempt to exclude media players that do not use the Windows Media framework using their patents on the Windows Media file formats/codecs. By owning a popular website and excluding non-Microsoft users, they put pressure on users to switch to Microsoft software. Again, this is immoral.
"Given Microsoft's position in the video sharing market (dead last), I expected a more aggressive product."
Given their their dominant role in the consumer and business operating systems market I would expect them to not give a shit about (relative) chicken scratch. What, are they bored?
Oh wait, flash video is the only thing stopping MS domination of free web video, nevermind... oh but for everything else, flash sucks, except for online cartoons... those are kind cool too.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Why do I have to SignIn? Cant I just browse what's been uploaded?
Well, I wouldn't use the site because of the freakishly homosexual dancing butterfly you have to watch on the sign-on screen. Oh ya, whats with needing an account just to watch videos?
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
This isn't new Microsoft pushes a bellow average product in a field full of competition, they make a few proprietary formats, which are better than the product itself, they use this to lift their product up while slowly making changes. They also introduce a few niche concepts in their product after an initially slow start. They launch Soapbox with nothing in beta then in a few weeks put a bunch of more innovative ideas into it to show consumers they are still working on it. This is an affront to Google's beta purgatory, where a product with good ideas is launched and left alone for a long time with few signs of work. Microsoft holds back the updates to give the illusion of progress so 6 months after launch they are at a similar place as Google. It's a choice between start fast go slow and start slow go fast.
eldavojohn
There are so many reviews of video sharing sites that look at the features but miss the fundamentals.
For example, speaking as someone who follows plenty of video links but doesn't use the service as an uploader, YouTube is unsatisfactory.
1. Video quality is terrible. It's impossible to make out detail on interesting movies.
2. No save function.
3. YouTube's bandwidth is inadequate. It's set up to play immediately while streaming, but YouTube can't stream at the same speed the movie plays. (No, there is no bottleneck on my end; I have 45 mbps fibre.)
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
"Given Microsoft's position in the video sharing market (dead last), I expected a more aggressive product."
Does this in turn mean that you would expect a 'less aggressive product' from the vs market leader?
You seem to be overlooking the fact that MS has a generally poor record all around when it comes to video, which should mean lower expectations. I simply don't see how anything here comes as a surprise.
If this guy had had some good ideas on what a sight should have had to make it successful, he'd have found venture capital and implemented it himself.
Those who can't do, review.
Maybe if they'd market something new instead of copying anything anyone else invents MicroSoft's stock would go up. Also, maybe they could productize some of the nifty inventions coming out its $5 billion research lab.
As soon as the page loaded in mozilla, it crashed with a seg fault. Hmmm...
When you're always trying to one-up viral online services like music and video they are bound to quickly lose those battles. If anyone thinks MS has gotten too big to be "viral" has never run ActiveX!
They should really focus on their core technologies, because they are seriously becoming just another media-whore, just trying to get their brand in front of everyone's eyeballs. At what cost you say? C-R-E-D-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y!
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
As someone that posts a LOT of videos to youTube, Google Video, and Veoh - I just GOTTA chime in on this.
.. My grandma can't figure out how to sign up, add me to her friend list, request ME to add her to my friend list -- all to see a 30 second clip of our family BBQ last week. I need to be able to send family and friends a 'no-member password' in a link to let them view that private video. So far, this is a feature NO ONE (AFAIK) has. :) I just know when I have a 10:15 video or a 5 minute HQ video that's 110MB, youTube tells me to piss off. Another reason to like Veoh - enjoy upping as long or as big of files as you like.
... someone figured out MSN Search sucks and Google is making money. We better respond with Live. What? iTunes is selling more tracks than Wal-mart and the other whores that are paying us big bucks to cripple content? We better respond with our own player that is locked to OUR service. What? Video Sharing? Bob, why didn't you think of that first? We better respond by knocking off our system with our nearest competitor!" ...
... fear."
First, I can't believe no one has mentioned Veoh.com yet and I'll tell you why in a minute.
Second, as an AVID user of these services, I should explain what I need in this sort of service:
1) Immediate access to my uploads. When 100% hits, I need to be able to shoot someone the URL to the file and they need to be able to get it (AFAIK, only Veoh allows immediate downloading of the file).
2) Easy batch uploading. Google and Veoh both have upload tools - but Veoh is the only one that seems to do it right. I haven't seen a web-based uploader that will allow me to queue and upload.
3) Private, key-based videos. Jesus man
4) HQ video. I shoot Nintendo DS videos. It's hard enough to see without the "LQ filter to Flash" conversion. Veoh (granted through a win32) allows the viewer to download the FULL quality video so they see it as I intended them to. Both youTube and Google Video really butcher videos; even ones from an HQ source upload.
5) Larger, Longer Videos - I'm the consumer; I don't care about your storage and bandwidth problems
No I don't work for Veoh. I just know they are the closest thing to meeting my needs as there is out there.
As for Soapbox - please. I have ZER0 love for MS (a well-documented, often lamented fact) and I'll admit it. However, I KNOW it is NOT just me in thinking that their subtle "wait for someone else to make a hit, then steal it, rebrand it, and give it away for free" business model has gone from "subtle" to "downright obvious". It is like they don't even care anymore that we KNOW and that they KNOW that we know. Has Microsoft gotten THAT big or have we as a society just become so ignorant and complacent that we don't give a rat's ass anymore? Those that do know cry to deaf ears. Those that don't could care less as long as it's free and hand-fed to them.
Everything MS does these days appears haphazard and 'knee-jerk' at best. "Uh oh
"You smell that, Rabbit?"
"Yeah
...porn like xtube and pornotube.
Funny?! This is more like +5000 Insightful ... They simply can't attack them, because their resources are stretched to the limit. And they have to defeat a good-sized adversary with lots of money and sworn markets, not a dropout like the previous. Also the world is mostly getting tired of all the hassle.
I am talking about MS, Sony and Netscape, not USA, Iran and Iraq. No, really.
The question is, should we scream in anger or feel relieved if the thing doesn't work with non-ie browsers?
I like how slashdotters talk about what shareholders should think/do, when very very few of them are shareholders of any company themselves. The overwhelming majority of slashdotters don't have two nickels to rub together (that's what happens when you work for free, letting Red Hat and IBM execs pocket the money from your labor), and yet talk about "shareholders". You dweebs don't know a damn thing about shareholding anymore than you know anything about going down on a chick.
I don't think the point of MSN Soapbox is to compete with YouTube yet. Far more likely targets are the "me too" services from Yahoo! and Google, along with leading startup competitors, who collectively have enough of the market to use as a base for attacking YouTube.
Regarding proprietary formats, you do know that Google's video service adds a proprietary tag to the header of any AVI files that you download, so that you're required to use Google's crap video player to play them, don't you? (I didn't know this myself, but digg had an article on it last week, and talked about how to strip that tag from the file; also Google only does this to Windows users; Linux users get a genuine playable AVI file).
The Reviewer expected something more aggressive.
Has he thought about probable integration with Windows Media Player?
Has he thought about probable integration with MSN (Live) Messenger and MSN Spaces?
Has he thought about probable integration with Windows XP or Windows Vista?
Plug in a webcam, Windows detects it, Windows asks if you want to publish your video.
To MSN Soapbox ofcourse.
Hurray.
Not aggressive enough?
http://www.inspirelight.net/
They should have called it Sandbox -- but then that reminds me of kitty litter. I think sites like http://www.flixya.com/ or http://www.revver.com/ make sense. I'm curious why the beta release from Soapbox is in 2007? How much time do you need? ;)
It's like they just can't play in the same sand box without being the bully..
The google video upload functionality which is coming to Picasa might come in handy for such people...